Page 48 - Studio International - May 1968

2 Some historical references

Establish a society
in which the individual
has to pay for the air he breathes
(air meters; imprisonment
and rarified air, in
case of non-payment).
Simple asphyxiation if
necessary (cut off the air)
Marcel Duchamp

Leonardo da Vinci was the first artist to understand the inherent
aesthetic character of air. He created a pneumatic environment by
using inflated pig's bladders in a small room.
Marcel Duchamp was the first artist in our century to use air as an
artistic medium. After discussing inflatables and flying sculpture with
Picasso around 1914, he produced a glass globe containing 50 cc of
pure Paris Air (1919).
Twenty years later Moholy-Nagy advocated inflatable furniture
through the use of compressed air (see Vision in Motion, Chicago,
1947, p. 46).
More recently a great number of kineticists have made extensive
use of air. Yves Klein (1928-62), one of the pivotal figures in post-
war European art, constructed the first 'aerostatic sculpture' or 'im-
materials', one thousand and one balloons floating over Place St.
Germain des Pres during his Paris exhibition in 1957. His close
friend, Piero Manzoni, made Floating Bodies and a large range of in-
flatable work including several architectural projects using air. The
Group T in Milan did a Large Pneumatic Sculpture in 1959.
The Zero Group's Demonstrations (1961) utilized hundreds of white
helium-filled balloons which were released into the Düsseldorf sky.
Recently, as a result of the great interest in inflatable structures, two
exhibitions were devoted to air art. The Utopie Group (J. Aubert,
J-P. Jungmann, A. Stinco and others) organized an exhibition en-
titled 'Structures gonflables', which opened on March 1 at the Musee
d'Art Moderne, Paris. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a
comprehensive catalogue with essays entitled, 'Essai sur technique et
societe', 'Considerations inactuelles sur le gonflable', and '
Parti-cularité des structures gonflables' by Utopie, contains more than one
hundred examples of inflatable structures from the inflatable
satellite, Echo 1 (in a photograph) to a balloon advertising a well-
known apéritif, 'St. Raphael'. A second exhibition entitled 'Air Art',
opened at the Philadelphia Arts Council on March 13. It contained one
sculptural work each by Hans Haacke, Akira Kanayama, Les Levine,
Preston McClanahan, David Medalla, Robert Morris, Marcello
Salvadori, Graham Stevens, John Van Saun and Andy Warhol, as
well as a multimedia demonstration by the Architectural Association
Group, London (S. Connoly, J. Devas, D. Harrison, D. Martin).

Above, right Andy Warhol Silver pillows 1966
View of exhibition, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
'I hate objects.' Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt

Right Graham Stevens Pneumatic environment 1968
'The structure is single skin fluorescent P.V.C.-coated nylon air structure H.F.
welded in the form of two folding hemispheres connected by a cylinder.
Overall length 20 ft and radius 5 ft. The inside is weighted and floored with a
15 ft 6 in. layflat heavy-guage polythene liquid container. Erection time
is approximately half an hour from arrival at internal or external site.
Weight approx. 70 lbs. Prototypes made at lntertherm Ltd Brixton by G.
Stevens and Simon Frazer. Manufactured by Eastwood Plastics Ltd.
Arterial Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Distribution by Unlimited Ltd, Widcombe
Manor, Bath.' Photo: Nina Raginsky
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